A diagnonal brace is a link that structurally connects an airplane engine strut to an airplane wing. A typical brace known in the art includes a tub body of a suitable material, such as aluminum or titanium, with clevis yokes fastened at each end of the tube.
The means for retaining the yoke to the tube has been a source of performance-related problems, service-related problems, problems in fabricating the brace, and problems in final assembly of an airplane. Specifically, high cyclic, compressive and tensile loading tends to loosen and degrade the fatigue performance of the brace at holes for shear fasteners located about the periphery of the brace at the concentric clevis yoke and tube member interface. Also, the concentric clevis yoke and tube member interface is difficult to inspect in-service for internal cracking, and is expensive and complicated to produce. Further, the permanent fasteners do not allow changes in the length of the brace during final assembly of an airplane. Instead, a custom-length brace must be fabricated and installed out of sequence during airplane final assembly. Finally, shear fasteners currently known in the art are undesirable for composite tube members.